As things transpired at the time, my diabetes appeared as a complete surprise. In retrospect, I can see several classic warning signs, all of which were easily explained away without recognizing their significance.

The earliest likely indication came in the summer of 2006, half a year before my diagnosis. I was in a long-distance relationship and my girlfriend had come to visit for about two months. Shortly before she left, I noticed that my pants had gotten to be so loose that I could, with only minimal effort, slide them down off my hips without unbuttoning them. I had apparently lost a lot of weight, but, since I didn't keep track of it, I hadn't noticed until then. However, during her stay I'd been eating a healthier diet than was typical on my own. She also had me out walking and generally being far more active than was normally the case, so it made perfect sense that I'd be losing weight.

The following November, winter finally made it to Minnesota and I turned on the heat - a gas furnace. I've always tended to have a bit of a dry mouth and, shortly after turning on the furnace, it started getting drier and drier. Obviously, the furnace was drying the air out and the dry air was sucking the moisture out of my mouth. Within a couple weeks, it was getting to be bad enough that it was waking me up at night, so I bought a humidifier. It didn't help much, even when the free hygrometer that came with it showed the humidity to be above the "Comfort Zone", but, then, it was pretty cheap, made of low-grade plastic and given away for free, so how could it be trusted?

By January, I wasn't just waking up for a drink, but also to go to the bathroom. Still, though, I've always tended to drink a lot of water and I had been drinking even more lately, trying to relieve the dryness in my mouth, so, again, with more water going in, it was to be expected that more would be coming out.

Come February, though, I noticed that the bubbles in the toilet bowl were much larger and longer-lasting than normal and my urine was starting to smell a bit odd. I still didn't recognize these things as signs that something was seriously wrong, but at least they registered at the time as noteworthy curiosities.

And then, at the end of February, it all went to hell.